


Blind Tiger

by abyssalAnarchist (AbyssalAnarchist)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 13:26:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbyssalAnarchist/pseuds/abyssalAnarchist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm sorry but too many people have complained, we have to shut down your blackjack table. The marks get uncomfortable when you lick the cards."<br/>"Don't be so unreasonable, Rose. I only lick the cards when they cheat."<br/>"They only cheat because they think you can't see them. That's the point..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blind Tiger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EK (ilyat)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyat/gifts).



"You could make her pay."

"Hmm."

"You could hurt her. Kill her. Keep her down there til she goes mad. Make an example of her."

Terezi rolled her cane between her fingertips thoughtfully, then shook her head. "If we do that, her ridiculous underlings will come after us. It'll be war."

"If we let her go, they'll definitely come after us. Better to make her disappear and let them think it was us, than make her reappear and have them know for certain."

"What about the other thing?"

Rose gave a dismissive wave. "It can wait."

"One of us should follow up on that."

A dull, rhythmic thudding echoed up through the floor.

"Sounds like she's awake. Better make up your mind before we have to open up for the night."

Rose and Terezi, elbows on the table, chins in their hands, sat in silence for long minutes. The thudding sounds continued. Finally, Terezi sat back, and reached into her pocket.

She held up a scratched coin, and smiled with altogether too many teeth.

"Let's let fate decide."

Rose shook her head, "No need. She's all yours. It might give you closure."

Terezi flipped the coin anyway. It landed on the deep carpet with a soft "pap"as Terezi made for the door. On her way out she turned to Rose, and asked "How did we even get into this mess?"

Rose looked up and raised an eyebrow, "Is it expository flashback time already?"

"I guess so."  
  


**== > Hours in the past, but not many.**

 

Rose prodded the bullet-riddled corpse with the tip of a needle.

"We should have known. He's got spider all over him."

The late torso did in fact have spider all over him, or what was left of him. Pretty much everything and everyone around him did as well.

"Shoosh," Terezi held up a finger. Someone was approaching, she could hear the footfalls. She pointed, then glided across the leaves so quietly the minions shuddered at her eerie passing. She positioned herself against a tree and gestured to the others to hold their places.

The slender woman who stepped into the glade was sharply dressed in black and blue, with long blue-black hair that tumbled and waved like storm clouds. Everything about her was blue and black and black-blue and blue-black. Even her voice sounded like the colour of the evening sky pitching towards midnight, or it would have, if she'd had the chance to speak before Terezi coldcocked her across the back of the head with the blunt end of her cane.

The blue-black woman fell to the ground with a kind of abrupt velocity. There was a loud and unsettling "crunch" as the side of her face bounced off a rock. She twitched violently, gasping and panting, and dark, blue-flecked foam appeared on her lips. Then she was still.

Rose crossed the clearing and nudged the woman with the tip of her boot. She poked at the woman's face with the sharp end of the needle. She kicked her, very hard.

The woman didn't grunt or cough or flinch. Rose leaned down, bending close to the woman's face.

"She's not breathing, if that's what you're wondering," said Terezi, and lightly tapped her earlobe.

"Oh fuck. You killed her."

The minions cheered. Rose clapped her left palm to her forehead.

"Shut up. This is bad."

The minions fell quiet.

"This is the head--the head!--of a significant rival business interest. Killing her doesn't make her operation go away, it just makes them extremely angry at us."

"Don't be so melodramatic," said Terezi. "They were already fairly ill-disposed towards us. You," she clicked her fingers at two of the largest and most muscular thugs, then the bodies, "make that disappear. Wrap them up and dispose of them. Properly. We can't have them coming back to inconvenience us. And the rest of you," she gestured to the mess of spider, "clean this up."

Rose's phone rang again. The same precise voice assailed her with another rambling cascade of slightly self-conscious fifty cent words.

"I'm afraid I must inform you of an abrupt change in dynamic. We may have been a little heavy-handed with what I now understand to have been a very delicate situation, and in doing so may have attracted a certain amount of unwanted attention."

"You're competent, ruthless, and impeccably dressed. I have every confidence in your ability to deal with this. However, I'm still busy. If anything, more busy than ever. Goodbye."

 

**== > Be the other girls.**

 

The sirens weren't going to get any closer. In just seconds there would be a brazen tattoo of loud knocking and raised voices. There was definitely no time to clean up the rainbow of heavy-handedness, much less the bootleg hooch and gambling tables, before rams and shouting were brought to bear against the already humiliated front door. There was scarcely even time to get changed, but Kanaya managed.

Nepeta simply wiped her face and hands, and smoothed down her clothes.

"Ok, I'm prepared," said Nepeta. She pronounced it "purpared."

"No. Absolutely not. You stay in here. Lock the door from the inside and stay quiet."

Nepeta looked crestfallen, but complied, and locked the door behind Kanaya. She pressed her ear to the panel to listen, curious as to how Kanaya would deal with the police, which even in her head she pronounced "purlice."

She could barely contain a loud snort of laughter when she heard the Kanaya crank up the volume on Pupae Of Anarchy, and skip to a particularly gang-war-themed episode.

"This is stupid," she thought, loudly enough to hear herself over the volume of the TV.

She barely heard the pounding on the door and the shouting, but moments later Kanaya turned the TV right down, and Nepeta could hear her apologising verbosely to the police for the inconvenience and promising that next time the neighbours were noisy she would wear headphones. Nepeta clamped a hand over her own mouth and bit down hard to keep from laughing.

A couple of anxious minutes passed, and then Kanaya said through the hidden secret door, "I think we're clear."

Nepeta opened the secret hidden door and hugged Kanaya exuberantly, squealing, "It worked! I can't believe it worked!"

As both Nepeta and Kanaya were about to breathe sighs of relief, a symphony of gunfire and explosions erupted from the street. They hit the floor and hoped for the best.

The shootout was over quickly, as they generally are. When Nepeta finally dared to peek out the window again, everyone was dead.

"I think," she said hesitantly, "this means there's no more problem."

"We still have a pile of bodies to dispose of before opening."

"Not to worry," Nepeta grinned. "We can just stick them in the holding cell for the time being."

 

**== > Stop being the other girls.**

 

One of the larger minions, of the two large minions assigned to corpse-disappearification, edged up to Rose and coughed nervously.

"Uh, boss. She's..."

"Not now."

"Boss, it's important."

"It better be."

"The head. When we tried to move her, she started breathing a little bit. She's not dead."

The minions cheered. Rose clapped both hands to her forehead.

"Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shut up. This is worse."

The minions fell quiet.

Terezi assumed a commanding pose and voice. "This doesn't change anything. Tape her up and get her out of here. Make sure she's not armed. I mean it, she can use just about anything as a weapon. I don't care if you have to strip her naked and turn her inside out to be sure. In fact, do that anyway."

"What are you planning to do with her?"

"We can put her in the holding cell til we think of something."

"The holding cell in the basement."

"Uh huh."

"The basement under the bar."

"Mm hmm."

"The bar where we do our business."

"The very same."

"Is this a manifestation of Thanatos, and why do you want to take the rest of us with you?"

"If you have any better suggestions, Lavender Freud, I'm listening."

"How does something like this even happen?" Rose sighed.

"Is it expository flashback time again?"

"I guess so."

 

**== > Slightly more hours in the past, but not many.**

 

Rose and Terezi, accompanied by eight minions, tracked the suspected mole to a clearing, deep in the forest. He appeared to be liaising with a representative of a rival business interest, in the form of a large, pale spider-beast.

Terezi bared her teeth and hissed. Side by side, flanked by the minions, she and Rose strode into the clearing, pointed their fingers accusingly at the mole, and Terezi declared him "Guilty!"

The mole squeaked and cowered. The great spider creature raised its front legs high in the air and displayed its fangs, toxic droplets of venom gleaming on the tips. In response, the minions opened fire. A tornado of bullets ripped through the spider, and it screamed and flailed wildly.

Then it exploded.

Pallid spider guts splashed copiously and obscenely across the entire party. The minions continued firing wildly, like dudes who had seen way too many gangster movies. A surprising number of bullets actually struck the mole, who jiggled about like another dude who had seen way too many gangster movies, before collapsing in a mangled, spider-coated, bloody heap like a dude who wasn't going to see another gangster movie ever again due to being freakishly and excessively dead.

Rose finger-combed bits of spider goo out of her hair and flicked it away. "You killed him." She said to the minions. The minions cheered. Rose clapped her right palm to her forehead.

"Shut up. That's bad. Now we can't interrogate him."

The minions fell quiet. Terezi looked dangerously disappointed.

"I like interrogating."

"I know you do," said Rose, gently patting Terezi's shoulder. "I know you do. Maybe you could interrogate one of these trigger-happy idiots, if it would make you feel better. Let some of that deep-seated unexpressed curiosity out."

Terezi shook her head, "You're always saying that I should express my feelings in a constructive framework. The trigger-happy idiots can't tell us anything new."

Rose's phone rang. On answering, she was assailed by a rambling cascade of slightly self-conscious fifty cent words.

"Though I realise you may be somewhat preoccupied at present I thought you would want to know that a less than wholly desirable situation has arisen at the club."

"I'm a little busy."

"The sort of situation that may impede the smooth and efficient pursuit of this evening's business."

"Are you in any danger of getting to the point? I'm a little busy."

"I thought you should know that there are a number of our more motivated competitors here who would like to open negotiations."

"You have my proxy. I'm busy," said Rose, and hung up.

 

**== > Elsewhere.**

 

Kanaya wished Rose could have come back to the bar, she would know exactly what to say to turn the intruders against each other.

"So let's see this little operation you have here," said the unpleasant bootlegger.

Kanaya tapped the hidden latch to open the hidden door to the hidden back room where the illegal stuff tended generally to happen.

"Please, come through. Make yourselves at home," she said, icily.

"Ladies first," said a representative of a gambling concern from across town, emphasising her meaning with a wave of her gun. Nepeta winked at Kanaya.

Keeping their hands clearly visible, the two of them walked into the back room ahead of their uninvited guests.

"Would anybody like a drink?" Nepeta asked as she passed the bar, and picked up a bottle. In the brief moment the intruders were looking to each other to gauge an appropriate answer, she yelled, "What the fuck are you doing?" and smashed it across the face of the nearest hooligan, knocking him to the ground.

Kanaya and Nepeta both dived for cover as the intruders panicked and fired wildly. Kanaya rolled under a poker table, where a sawnoff shotgun was wired under the Dealer's place. She tipped the table over and tore the shotgun free. There were only two shells. She managed to take out a large chunk of the poorly groomed bootlegger's head with one of them, and the other went into the groin of a sleazy drug lord from the projects.

Nepeta made it behind the bar, where she was able to fling bottles of bathtub gin with unerring accuracy at the heads of bewildered mobsters. The rifles behind the bar were antiques and just for show, and the revolver under the bar only had one bullet, which she used to put down the last man standing.

Fortunately, any illusion of uneasy truce fled as soon as the bullets started flying, and the intruders shot each other reasonably efficiently. It only took a few seconds, but it felt like days.

Once the bullets were gone, there was nothing much left but to bayonet the wounded. Antique or not, the rifles' bayonets were still sharp.

"How did you know that would work?" asked Kanaya, suspiciously.

"I didn't," grinned Nepeta, as she cautiously peered out the window. All along the street, tricked out vans with blackened windows were in evidence, each one no doubt containing a bevy of heavily armed backup for each godfather, bootlegger, pusher and cook they had just killed.

Quietly, in the distance, a wail of sirens took up.

"Well this is a headache," said Nepeta.

"I think you were supposed to phrase that as a question," said Kanaya.

"What?"

"It seems it's our turn to do the expository flashback segue."

"Yay!"

 

**== > Minutes in the past, but not many.**

 

There was a scratching sound at the door. Kanaya didn't bother check through the peephole, before opening it and demanding "Why can't you knock like a normal person?"

Nepeta looked embarrassed. Her embarrassment mostly stemmed from the fact that she was flanked by a pair of burly dry cleaners with loaded guns pressed into her ribs, and not from her odd habit of scratching rather than knocking.

Her escorts pushed her into the room, and closed and locked the door behind them. Kanaya recognised them as a pair of local money launderers.

Moment later, there was a loud knock on the door. "Answer it," hissed one of the goons, and waved his gun menacingly--it being very difficult to wave a gun in a manner that is not menacing.

Kanaya peered through the peephole. A couple of pizza delivery guys with very large stacks of pizza boxes . One of them called out "Delivery!"

"I didn't order anything," Kanaya called back.

"Get rid of them," said the other dry cleaner.

Kanaya cracked the door to tell them they had the wrong address and discovered that the pizza boxes were a ruse, and the delivery guys were in fact eminent representatives of an old Sicilian family, quite certain that they had the right address.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" demanded the pizza guys.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" demanded the dry cleaners.

There was another knock at the door, and someone called "Electrisucks!"

"Get rid of them," said the dry cleaners and the pizza guys.

The vacuum cleaner salespeople were actually underworld pornographers, who forced their way in with contraband dildos.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" demanded the vacuum cleaner salespeople.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" demanded the dry cleaners and the pizza guys.

There was another knock at the door, and someone called "Delivery!"

"Get rid of them," said the dry cleaners, the pizza guys, and the vacuum cleaner salespeople.

"Come on in, it's open." called Kanaya, and clapped her palm to her forehead.

In a matter of minutes, under various guises including cable installation, Chinese takeaway delivery, religious pamphleteers, and cookie-pushing girl scouts, to mention but a few, most of the city's criminal underworld gained entry.

It was clear none were expecting to see any of the others. A lot of toes had been stepped on and back pockets hurt when Terezi and Rose joined forces, but apparently the aggrieved parties hadn't the confidence in each other to present a united front. It took a lot of yelling and posturing for a spokesperson to be elected and a loose agenda defined.

"We'd like to speak to the administration of this reputable establishment," announced a local bootlegger with a history of poor grooming and unpleasantness.

As Kanaya dialled Rose's number, she caught herself wondering why it had to be today, of all days, that Rose and Terezi both had some kind of errand, leaving her holding the pupa, which in this case was a posse of hostile gangsters, armed to the teeth and bristling with unreasonableness.

Nepeta looked around sharply, and said, "Is this going to be another expository flashback?"

Kanaya rolled her eyes, "How many of these do we really need?"

"I think this is the last one."

 

**== > Somewhat more hours in the past, but not many.**

 

"I'm sorry but too many people have complained, we have to shut down your blackjack table. The marks get uncomfortable when you lick the cards."

"Don't be so unreasonable, Rose. I only lick the cards when they cheat."

"They only cheat because they think you can't see them. That's the point, that's why we set up the whole blind dealer gaff. You're supposed to let them think they can get the better of us."

"I prefer to make them think they shouldn't try."

"Save it for the troublemakers."

"Cheating is troublemaking."

"As long as think they have a chance to beat the house, they'll drink more and bet more. The more overconfident and drunk they get, the more risks they take and the more money we make."

"Like one of your Earth-ducks luring predators away from its young by pretending to be injured."

"If the young were the profits of illegal gambling in an underground speakeasy, that's a more or less insightful--if somewhat bizarre--comparison. Well done. Be the duck."

Terezi grinned broadly, with a lot of teeth.

"Ducks are delicious."

They were interrupted by a trepidatious cough.

A nervous minion crushed and folded his hat, and shuffled about on the spot like he was fighting not to flee screaming into the night. When he spoke, he squeaked.

"We think we've identified the mole. He's on route to a meeting. We can handle it."

Terezi stood and smoothed down her shirt, "No. We will take care of this revolting little disappointment personally." She nodded to Rose, "Let's go."

Crossing the front room, Rose blew Kanaya a kiss as she latched the secret panel behind her, "Hold the fort til we get back."

 

**== > Make her pay.**

 

Terezi held her cane in both hands, like a staff, her feet apart and knees soft in a combat stance. The woman shackled in the holding cell smirked. The pile of bodies stored with her had apparently failed to intimidate her at all. Her voice sounded exactly the colour of the evening sky pitching towards midnight.

"You can't do it. You're weak, you'll keep looking for a reason not to. If you were going to do me, you would have done it ages ago. I know you, remember."

The middle segment of the cane clattered to the ground at Terezi's feet. Blades flashed and scissored, ribbons of cerulean blue trailed behind them. The head, just her head, landed with a wet thud and rolled away, finally coming to rest half tilted, face up. She looked genuinely surprised.

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from 19th century slang; Wikipedia says "The term "blind pig" (or "blind tiger") originated in the United States in the nineteenth century; it was applied to lower-class establishments that sold alcoholic beverages illegally. The operator of an establishment (such as a saloon or bar) would charge customers to see an attraction (such as an animal) and then serve a "complimentary" alcoholic beverage, thus circumventing the law."


End file.
